Managed service providers (MSPs) are renowned for providing businesses with exceptional support while allowing them to focus on more revenue-generating activities, but how do they specifically help fast-scaling organizations?
By allowing companies to maintain their internal IT departments, co-managed services help growing enterprises cut costs while receiving highly skilled around-the-clock support that would be otherwise out of reach were they to keep these same services in-house.
Whether you’re just starting to scale your small business or have been growing for a while, there eventually comes a breaking point at which, due to the sheer volume of work, even the simplest IT tasks become difficult to manage. When this happens, critical details fall through the cracks, and oversights are made, potentially snowballing to a stage where it threatens the viability of your business.
In today’s tight labor market, and in an IT industry with a notoriously high turnover rate, finding and training the right technology staff to handle your handle maintenance and help desk functions can be a challenge. Committing your core IT staff to handling remedial IT tasks for the better part of the workday means you’ll be sacrificing at least some critical revenue-building opportunities as you work tirelessly just to keep your business operations flowing without significant interruption.
In scenarios like this, when the work starts to pile up after experiencing a rapid stage of growth, company leaders frequently turn to managed service providers (MSPs) for additional support. Once a scaling business surpasses a specific growth threshold, it often makes sense to engage a co-managed IT supplier to deliver services it might otherwise struggle to handle with its existing staff alone.
Co-managed IT services from an experienced and reputable supplier like PCH Technologies represent an excellent solution for getting your IT back under control in the immediate near term while helping you reduce overall IT costs over the long run. There’s no shame in handing off your rudimentary IT functions to an outsourcer, especially if it’s the direct result of a successful strategic growth initiative. One of the most attractive features of co-managed IT is that you can pick and choose the services à la carte.
The ability to unsaddle your in-house IT team from resource-intensive administration tasks means you can place more emphasis on product development and advancing your business growth objectives. Should you encounter an unexpected revenue pitfall, with co-managed IT, it’s just as easy to scale down as it is to scale up. You won’t have to worry as much about letting go of new hires.
If you are just starting to familiarize yourself with co-managed IT, let’s take a look at how a scaling business can benefit from this particular service.
What is co-managed IT?
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to sacrifice your existing IT department to benefit from a managed IT services provider. You can actually leverage the expertise and advanced technological resources and infrastructure of an MSP through the co-managed option.
If you need additional IT staff but aren’t prepared to bring them on as direct hires, co-managed IT services can work in tandem with your existing staff as you continue scaling.
One of the primary advantages of MSPs is they offer advanced software tools and cloud storage solutions in addition to specialized expertise in areas where your in-house IT department may be lacking. Co-managed IT services aren’t limited to cybersecurity and fulfilling basic help desk functions, either.
They can handle any aspect a fully managed option might provide, including backup and disaster recovery, hybrid cloud services, software licensing, mobile device management, and much more.
How are co-managed solutions beneficial for growing businesses?
Once you’ve identified the right MSP to meet your unique IT requirements, here are a few key ways you can benefit from a co-managed partnership:
Continuous monitoring and support
For many small to medium-sized businesses, maintaining suitable 24-hour support is cost-prohibitive if they can even manage to find the staff to fill the second and third shifts. The trouble with this is that you’re network stability and security requirements do not end at six, after your core IT staff members head home.
Your co-managed IT service provider can handle monitoring for you over the weekend and through the night, so you don’t have to worry about keeping employees on call or incurring expensive overtime when you have a dedicated team looking over your systems in a trusted MSP like PCH Technologies.
Lower IT expenditures
A common misconception among business owners and leaders is that co-managed IT solutions are too expensive and only larger companies with inflated budgets can realize a return on their investment worth mentioning. This is hardly the case.
Co-managed options are not only lower than fully managed solutions; they also help you cut costs in several key areas, such as new hire onboarding and training, employee benefits, and, since MSPs already have these tools, fewer software and hardware costs.
A predictable budget
Among the main challenges in managing your IT in-house is that you’re often faced with steep, unanticipated expenses that could’ve otherwise been avoided had you engaged the services of a managed IT provider.
Under a co-managed subscription, you’ll be billed for the requested services only, simplifying financial planning. Likewise, leading MSPs have already leveraged economies of scale, and they’re able to deliver services at what amounts to a wholesale cost when compared with pricing on the standard market.
Getting started with co-managed IT
If it looks like co-managed IT services might be right for your business, PCH Technologies can help take your IT to the next level. From government and education to healthcare and financial services, we have an excellent track record of providing premium co-managed IT solutions to clients across multiple sectors.
Find out how to keep your business on a positive growth path by scheduling a free discovery call online or call our team of IT experts now at (856) 754-7500.